The Principle of Spiritual Economy

Schmidt Number: S-1970

On-line since: 15th May, 2009

Lecture VI

On the Occasion of the Dedication of the
Francis of Assisi Branch

Malsch, April 6, 1909

Today we are
gathered for the dedication ceremony of our anthroposophical
branch in Maisch. Although this “Section” of our
Society has been fully at work for a while, we are able only
today to officially celebrate its opening.

Many of our
anthroposophical friends have come to this celebration from
the most diverse regions to which our anthroposophical
endeavors have spread. By coming here, they have demonstrated
that they wish to unite their anthroposophical feelings and
thoughts with those of serious and hardworking people in this
group. One might say this group of people in Maisch has been
thrown into these remote mountains, but surrounded by all the
beautiful, great, and noble forces of nature, they will
successfully unfold anthroposophical life. Those of you who
were able to look around in the vicinity of this hospitable
house in Malsch will have noticed that much has been done for
its external appearance, as if the people responsible wished
to say externally that the spiritual life by which all of us
are inspired shall find special expression in this beautiful
spot.

Let us look
back at the modest beginnings of our anthroposophical life at
the founding of our German Section, into which the Section in
Malsch is now being incorporated. At that time we began with
but a small group of people of spiritual scientific
enthusiasts. Then, as we look at events such as this one
today and observe the large number of souls who unite with us
in spiritual scientific feelings and sentiments, we can be
satisfied with the last few years of our endeavors.

The
Stockmeyer family has spared no efforts to help with the
unfolding of spiritual life on this beautiful piece of land
although the spirits of nature have clearly aided their
efforts. Also, this family must find great satisfaction in
seeing how many genuine and true friends have hurried to this
hospitable place, and I am sure all anthroposophical friends
may be justly called genuine and true friends. This is so
because anthroposophy must above all be truth in our hearts,
and truth is sincerity. Anthroposophy, therefore, must be
sincere; and anthroposophical friendship is expressed by your
participation in such a dedication festival. Everything must
be imbued with sincerity because honesty in friendship unites
us with those who have worked so industriously so that here,
too, there would arise a working sphere of anthroposophic
activity. The hearts of those who have come here will be
filled with gratitude for the efforts of the Stockmeyer
family, who can be assured of our truly sincere
anthroposophical appreciation.

On the other
hand, the very success of such a dedication festival with so
many souls present shows that Spiritual Science in our time
is a powerful magnet for human striving, and on this occasion
it may also be fitting to say that we can certainly look
beyond the rooms that, surrounded by the spirits of beautiful
nature, enclose us today and look at the rest of the world.
It is possible to say that life and the endeavors of
Spiritual Science today appear as phenomena whose existence
results from an inner necessity. Really, it is as if many a
page in the book about the life of old cultures, which
sustained European and Western humanity for millennia and
gave security and strength for life to it, were now beginning
to wither and appear cold and lifeless to human hearts. That
is why we see today a longing for spiritual scientific truths
in so many areas of life. I, for one, having been permitted
to speak to you here, sense something like a future force at
work because of what has been taking place around me in the
last few days.

We are here
surrounded by green trees, the budding life of nature, and
also by the magnificent sunlight that shines on us
benevolently at this dedication since it animates everything
and is imbued with spirit. This, then, is a perfect place to
relate to you the words of our great harbingers of the new
wisdom, the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of
Feelings.

A few days
have passed since I was permitted to speak in the same spirit
in a lecture cycle in Rome, and this event symbolized to me
what a magnet spiritual striving is. I was to speak to those
who harbor a spiritual scientific longing in their hearts,
but their longing is still fairly undefined at times. Yet the
place where I was to speak looked differently, and it was on
ground that actually had been entered only by cardinals in
pursuit of spiritual endeavors or by others who work out of
the convictions of the most positive and orthodox
Catholicism. And so the air of the rooms where normally
nothing but the official message from the orthodox center of
Rome was proclaimed resounded with the free pronouncements of
the spiritual scientific world view.

This shows us
that although the free contemporary spirits of these Northern
lands feel more attracted to anthroposophy, they can
nevertheless look with a certain satisfaction to the souls
who long to escape from an old, iron-clad orthodox tradition.
It is certainly a good indication of the spirit of the times
that it was possible to speak as freely and frankly about
anthroposophic truths on territory heretofore reserved for
cardinals, and as freely as this would be possible in the
North. For what has been said before holds true everywhere:
anthroposophy is sincerity; and where souls are in need of it
and a call is issued, anthroposophy will follow it. But at no
time will anthroposophy deviate in the least from the overall
precepts that inspire its pronouncements, just because the
consideration for the territory on which these pronouncements
are made may make this expedient.

Wherever
anthroposophical truth is proclaimed and where the spiritual
element that pulsates through us is cultivated, there our
message must be delivered in the light of sincerity, even
when it is still surrounded by the thoughts of those who hate
anthroposophy. However, in the midst of those who hate
anthroposophy there are souls who, more or less consciously,
long for the light of anthroposophy. And especially a strong
contrast such as the one I have experienced during the past
fourteen days can show us what a strong magnet
anthroposophical life is.

The
observation of our immediate present teaches us that this
anthroposophical force is now strong enough to justify our
joyful and satisfying hope that the small seedling planted
today will in the future grow into a mighty tree. As
theosophists, we are today in the same position humanity was
in during the ancient Atlantean time. And just as life has
become different since that time, so it will change again in
the future, up to a time following a catastrophe. The wide
perspective will now be made to appear before our souls.

Let us call
to memory a similar movement in the last third of the
Atlantean epoch that started small just like ours. The
Atlantean soul life, which in many ways was still
clairvoyant, had reached a high point during that time, but
it did not yet have the consciousness of self, the strong
feeling of the “I.” Instead, Atlanteans had a
certain ability of clairvoyance and also certain magical
powers, and this enabled them to look into the spiritual
world. Those who had progressed to be leaders of this
civilization were the ones best able to gaze into the
spiritual world in the old ways and to bring forth the most
knowledge from the astral realms. This clairvoyance
disappeared little by little; in fact, mankind had to lose it
completely in order to conquer for itself the consciousness
of self in the physical world. But it is certain that
clairvoyant knowledge in the last third of the Atlantean era
had reached a special climax.

You will
remember the technological achievement of the Atlanteans.
They flew over the earth in small space vehicles —
close to the earth because the atmosphere was saturated with
thick fog formations. They propelled their small vehicles
through this sea of air and water with energy derived from
sprouting plants. The leading creators of this technology can
be compared to today's industrial wizards who construct
ingenious machines from lifeless forces. And those Atlanteans
who could relate the most from the spiritual world can be
compared to today's leading scholars and natural
scientists.

However,
within this Atlantean humanity a segment of people began to
evolve who had only minor clairvoyant faculties, but
possessed the ability to regard the external world with
affection. The first rudimentary beginnings of arithmetic and
counting could be observed in these people, but their
participation in the great advances of the Atlantean industry
— the construction of ever mightier vehicles for this
sea of water and air — was very limited. And thus a
small, insignificant group of people had developed in this
last third of the Atlantean period who, in a certain sense,
were despised for their comparative lack of clairvoyant power
and their inability to participate in this great industry.
However, this group of people prepared the way for seeing and
knowing that is prevalent today, the way of seeing and
knowing of which the external world today is so proud since
it developed it in such a one-sided way.

Those leaders
of the Atlantean civilization who had mastered everything
that could be known from the vantage point of the Atlantean
consciousness, including technology, conceived of a technical
idea toward the end of the Atlantean era that has become
fully productive in modern times. We can compare it to
another measure of progress in our time that will carry over
into the next catastrophe. During their golden age, the
Atlanteans had vehicles that moved through air that was
heavily mixed with water. Later, however, when their culture
was already in a state of decline, it also became necessary
to navigate the water, and this led the last cultural races
of the Atlantean era first to embracing and then to realizing
the idea of navigation and the conquest of the seas. This
momentous idea in the Atlantean era not only of traversing
the air but also of navigating the ocean water was quite a
sensational idea that was put into reality by the last
Atlantean races. After long experiments to navigate the
waters, success came during the time when Atlantean culture
was already in its decline.

Those
responsible for this tremendous progress were not the ones
who could be recruited for the task of transmitting the
legacy of the actual spiritual life from the Atlantean era to
our time. Rather, this task was reserved for the plain and
simple people because they had been the first ones to be
endowed with the ability to relate to the physical world.
They were the ones whose clairvoyant faculties, though
deteriorated the most among the several groups of people,
were still adequate for those who were messengers from the
spiritual world. These people, despised by the great scholars
and inventors, were gathered by an eminent initiate whom we
call The Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. This small group
was comprised of people who had least preserved their
technical abilities and who were disdained by the leaders and
by the great scholars and inventors. Yet it was precisely
they whom the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle led from the
West to the East, through Europe and into Asia. And it is
also this small group of people that made the foundation of
the post-Atlantean cultures possible.

The best of
what was subsequently developed by the various cultures, the
mighty tree of post-Atlantean knowledge and wisdom, emanated
from the descendants of the despised simple people from the
Atlantean era. Above all, something else emanated from the
midst of the descendants of this group of modest people. Let
us place the external events side by side with the internal
events of our evolution. Let us look at the great sensation
of the Atlantean era when the secondary racial group, whose
descendants were the Phoenicians, invented navigation. What
was accomplished by this invention?

We need only
to remember the great events from the beginning of modern
times, such as the great voyages of discovery by Columbus and
other seafarers, which would have been impossible without
navigation and the invention of ships, and we shall see how
this sensational invention led to the gradual conquest of the
physical plane on earth. PostAtlantean peoples were confined
to a small radius of activities, but through the invention of
ships the circle defining the earth became rounded out so
that we now have a completed configuration of the physical
plane. And thus, the sensational invention of the Atlantean
world reaches into our time and promotes further progress on
the physical plane.

However, the
greatest conquest in the Atlantean era emanated from the
descendants of that group of plain people gathered around the
Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle. And when those descendants,
through their own development, had prepared the Indian,
Persian, Egyptian, GraecoLatin, and our cultures, the earth
became capable of yielding the material into which the Christ
could be born. Therefore, the greatest spiritual event and
deed of the post-Atlantean era had its beginning in the
people who belonged to the most despised human beings in the
eyes of the leaders of the Atlantean civilization, and this
event gave rise to the immense spiritual progress that
supports and maintains all spiritual life in our time —
weaves through it and makes it productive.

The events in
Atlantis are paralleled by those of our time. Seeing that the
germinal beginnings of man's ability to do arithmetic and to
count were present in Atlantis, we can recognize how these
capabilities are today furthered in a marvelous conquest of
the physical plane and how they brought about all kinds of
technical progress. We also see how the great inventors and
discoverers today have reached the culmination, in a sense,
in applying those forces that first began to germinate with
the small group of despised people in the Atlantean time. And
what was then clairvoyant knowledge is today knowledge of
nature and of the physical world. There is also a similarity
between the spiritual leaders of the Atlantean civilization
and today's natural scientists and scholars. On the other
hand, a class of plain people exists everywhere —
irrespective of positions its members might hold in the
world, whose hearts are filled with the mighty magnet that
attracts us to spiritual life, just as people in Atlantis
were attracted to a life in which the external faculties for
the physical plane could be developed.

Despite these
similarities, there is also a certain difference between the
modern and the ancient situation. In the old days referred
to, the last remnants of clairvoyance were still present in
people so that they were able to behold the Great Initiate.
In a certain way, things today are more difficult for human
beings when a call from the spiritual world issues to an
equally small group of people, something we designate as the
call of the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings.
But since people today are placed on the physical plane,
these Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings are at
first unknown to this small nucleus of human beings that has
crystallized itself out of the mass of people. As we can
deduce from the facts of the present time, this small group
feels in its hearts that there is such a thing as a new
spiritual message that is meant to have an effect on the
future just as the message in former ages has had an effect
on the present. These human beings who today come from all
walks of life and whom we can find everywhere are the true
theosophists because they carry in their hearts a longing for
a spiritual life that is meant to lay the foundation for
future cultures. The true theosophists in our time are
emerging — just as we now encounter a sensational
discovery similar to the one in the Atlantean era.

In ancient
times water was conquered through the highest technological
progress; the same is true today in the case of air. This
conquest will, of course, extend into a later epoch. But just
as ships in our times have brought about mastery of the
physical plane only, so the air ship that will lead human
beings into the atmosphere and beyond will empower the pilots
to find only matter — material things. Granted, new
realms of the physical plane will be conquered, and this will
be beneficial for the external world. However, the inner
spiritual life is borne in the hearts of those who feel
spiritually fulfilled by the promise of being able in the
future to look into the spiritual world while being conscious
of self.

Look into
life and you will find out there our leaders of civilization,
the pillars of external culture, active as inventors and
discoverers, as scholars and natural scientists. They look
with scorn and contempt on a small group such as the one
assembled here today that constitutes itself as a new bearer
of culture and that unites its members with others in
spiritual scientific associations. The events of the ancient
Atlantean era repeat themselves.

However, when
the spiritual life touches your hearts with such force that
you can compare yourselves with dignity to those who were
gathered around the Great Initiate of the Sun Oracle, then
you will be the bearers of spiritual life in later ages. In
addition to offering humanity the external, material, and
corporeal realities, such a life would also make possible a
renewed immersion in the spiritual world. Although the Great
Initiate gathered human beings around Himself in ancient
times, today the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of
Feelings fulfill a similar function and issue their call to
you. If you feel your mission from a sense of history, then
your hearts will become strong enough to withstand all the
ridicule and disdain that the so-called pillars of
civilization heap on Spiritual Science from the outside. And
if you understand your mission in this spirit, then your
thoughts will be strong and any doubt that may reverberate
into your souls from the outside will be unable to shake you
in your conviction. Your thoughts will be spiritually refined
by the very force that can issue from such a knowledge of our
mission. Even if we have to review thousands of years and
establish far-reaching ideals, it is worth the effort because
where such ideals are established, life is transmuted, and
where they are absent, life is dead. Ideals transform
themselves into the force of a moment even if they have been
taken from vast periods of time and may seem to make the
person subscribing to them appear somewhat petty and
despondent. You will be strong for the most insignificant
task if you are capable of extracting your ideal from the
loftiest heights. This will make you stand fast when those
who govern the world with their erudition talk with disdain
and contempt about the little spiritual scientific
associations where those people sit who “do not want to
go along with contemporary culture.” Oh yes, they do
want to go along, and they also know to appreciate the
accomplishments of the external, physical world, but they
also know that just as a body cannot be without a soul, no
external culture can exist without spiritual life.

Just as the
despised human beings characterized above gathered around the
Great Initiate and after generations made the existence of
Christ on earth possible, so the anthroposophical movement
must facilitate a comprehensive understanding of Christ.
Christ descended to earth in the fourth major era, and those
who wish to understand Him completely will be able to do so
from the anthroposophical vantage point.

Why do people
who have heretofore been nourished by the positive, orthodox
religions, come to Spiritual Science as if responding to an
undefined longing in their consciousness? Why do they listen
to the anthroposphical message when before they listened only
to the Vatican? Why? Is it still permissible today to say
anthroposophy exists only for those who regard the greatest
spiritual fact of our age — the Christ Impulse —
with indifference? What do the people coming to us need from
us? They want us to tell them who Christ was and what He
accomplished! They are coming to us because those who
consider themselves to be the privileged bearers of the
Christ-name today cannot tell them who Christ was, whereas
anthroposophy can. Today's cultural leaders use the denial of
Christ to oppose the external tradition emanating from
various religions, but they cannot effectively challenge the
moribund positive religious movements. Those who do not know
what the Great Christ is, those who deny His spirituality
will be no match even for the old religious movements. But
only the spiritual movements that place themselves in the
midst of those who claim an exclusive right to the
Christ-name, the movements who know how to express the true
essence of the Christ even to those who wish to hear the
opposite, only those spiritual movements will attract human
beings to their cause who carry the future in their hearts.
The ancient religious trends will prove to be stronger than
all religious nihilism.

We do not
conceive of anthroposophical life in a petty, dogmatic sense,
nor do we want to comprehend it with the help of individual
tenets or maxims, but rather by recognizing and understanding
the mission and the task of our time. We want to embrace
anthroposophical life in such a way that the true spirit of
our time speaks to us and that the most significant event of
our post-Atlantean era can be expressed through the words of
anthroposophy. If these words are not just recited but rather
put into practice as an expression of the spirit of our time,
they will become a dynamic force of life in our souls, and
this will make people understand what anthroposophical life
is.

When we truly
feel this, we will increasingly grow stronger, and the newly
gained strength will help us to embrace our ideal firmly.
Then we will know how this ideal can be justified, regardless
of whether this happens in an environment where an old
culture yearns for a new content, or in this environment
here, where nature and the magnificent, spirit-endowed
sunrays glittering around us encircle what the daily efforts
of anthroposophy achieve. We will again learn to recognize
the spirit within these sunrays and know that when the sun
has set, the spirit indwelling in it will look into our
hearts. We will also learn what it means to behold the sun
and its spirit at midnight, and in understanding what this
spirit is, we will see how it has descended and how it is now
united with the highest impulses of our age. It is necessary
that humanity understand the Christ-Impulse and that we can
say who the Christ was. Such an understanding is now only in
the beginning stages, but in direct proportion to its
increasing spiritual insights, mankind will gradually
understand how the Christ-Impulse has penetrated this worldly
edifice.

To feel this
way at the dedication of a branch of our movement is
especially appropriate when, as is the case here, the members
were united in wanting to express a heartfelt desire and name
this branch after Francis of Assisi, whose life is enveloped
by a deep spiritual mystery.

When Christ
descended to the earth, He enveloped Himself with the
threefold physical, etheric, and astral bodies of Jesus of
Nazareth and lived three years in this sheath as Christ, the
Sun-Spirit. With the event of the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ
descended to the earth; but aside from what is known to all
of you, something else special happened by virtue of the fact
that Christ indwelled the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth,
particularly the astral and etheric bodies. After Christ cast
off the bodies of Jesus of Nazareth, they were still present
as spiritual substance in the spiritual world, but multiplied
in a great many copies. They did not perish in the world
ether or in the astral world, but continued to live as
identical images. Just as the seed of a plant, once buried in
the ground, reappears in many copies according to the mystery
of number, so the copies of Jesus of Nazareth's etheric and
astral bodies were present in the spiritual world. And for
what purpose were they present, considering the large
framework of spiritual economy? They were there to be
preserved and to serve the overall progress of the human
race.

One of the
first individuals to benefit from the blessed fact of these
countless copies of Jesus's etheric body being present in the
spiritual world was St. Augustine. When he again descended to
earth after an earlier incarnation, not just any etheric body
was woven into his own, but rather the copy of the etheric
body of Jesus of Nazareth. Augustine had his own astral body
and ego, but his etheric body was interwoven with the image
of the etheric body of Jesus. He had to work through the
culture of his ego and astral body, but when he had made his
way to the etheric body, he realized the great truths that we
find in his mystical writings.

Many other
human beings from the sixth to the ninth centuries had a copy
of the etheric body of Jesus woven into their own etheric
bodies. Many of these individuals conceived the Christian
images that later were to be glorified in the arts in the
form of the Madonna or the Christ on the cross. They were the
creators of religious images who experienced in themselves
what the people living at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha
had experienced.

In the period
spanning the eleventh through the fifteenth centuries the
time had come when a copy of the astral body of Jesus of
Nazareth was woven into the astral bodies of certain
reincarnated souls. From the eleventh to the fourteenth
centuries many human beings, for example Francis of Assisi
and Elisabeth of Thüringen, had the imprint of the
astral body of Jesus of Nazareth woven into them while their
own astral bodies — the source of their knowledge
— were formed during reincarnation. This enabled these
individuals to proclaim the great truths of Christianity in
the form of judgments, logical constructs, and scientific
wisdom. But, in addition, they were also able to experience
the feeling of carrying the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth
within themselves.

Your eyes
will be opened if you allow yourselves to experience
vicariously all the humility, the devotion, and the Christian
love that was part of Francis of Assisi. You will then know
how to look at him as a person prone to make mistakes —
because he possessed his own ego — and as a great
individual because he carried a copy of the astral body of
Jesus of Nazareth within his own astral body. All the humble
feelings, the profound mysticism, and the spiritual soul life
of Francis of Assisi become comprehensible if we know this
one secret of his life.

Having such
knowledge, we can see with our inner eye that the future of
this new branch augurs well as it climbs upward under the
guiding light of this great individual, for those who, like
Francis of Assisi, received the grace and the calling to
guide Christian humanity in the West will at all times let
their spiritual light radiate into the areas of spiritual
activity. And especially if this Francis of Assisi Section
works in a genuinely spiritual sense, the unison of thoughts
and feelings of this branch will be the reflection of the
harmonizing light of Francis of Assisi, which he received as
a gift of grace, as we mentioned before, by an infusion of
his own astral body with a copy of the astral body of Jesus
of Nazareth. Something of this light will radiate into this
very branch.

In letting
such perspectives roll by our inner eye, we who are assembled
today in this modest branch for the purpose of dedicating the
new branch will leave the proper feelings behind us when we
depart. Let us look up to the light of Francis of Assisi; let
us take along with us what can be ignited in us in this
moment, and let us remember this branch in the future. In
doing so, our feelings and thoughts will hover invisibly over
this Francis of Assisi Branch, so that the impulses
struggling upward from below may prove to be worthy of the
light that shines into our souls from the outside. In such a
moment we become conscious of the fact that we are here to
work for the true and real measures of progress in our
post-Atlantean era. Surely, when the founders of this branch
felt the need to name it after Francis of Assisi, their souls
must have sensed something of the great progress.

What was the
most decisive turning point of our entire evolution? It was
the time when the Christ descended to earth. Let us look back
six hundred years from that event and then compare the earth
to what it was six hundred years after Christ, a period
spanning some twelve hundred years. First, let us look at
Buddha, who lived six hundred years before Christ. In him we
see an individuality of such greatness that words of
admiration should be superfluous. Specifically, let us look
at the moment where he is led out into life, but not into the
life he wanted to live. Consider how he first meets a
helpless child and how from this experience he forms the
perception that there is suffering in the journey that human
beings begin with their birth. And upon seeing a sick person,
he says to himself, “Not only is there suffering in
this world, but human beings on this plane are also subjected
to illness.” He sees an old person who no longer is
able to move his limbs and says to himself, “Aging
involves suffering.” And when he sees a corpse, the
sight of it conjures up in him the perception that death is
suffering. Another perception is that to be separated from a
loved one creates suffering, as is the case when one is
united with someone whom one doesn't love. Finally, not to
obtain what one desires is suffering too.

This, then,
is the teaching that spread as the teaching of Buddha, some
six hundred years before Christ. Let us fix in our minds the
moment where Buddha steps out into the world, sees a corpse,
and stands face to face with death. It was six hundred years
after the event of Golgotha when for the first time one
particular image came into being: the image of the cross with
the corpse of the Savior hanging on it. Thousands of people
were there to look at it. Now when Buddha looked at a corpse,
it was to him a personification of all suffering on earth.
The believers of the Christian community six hundred years
after Christ would look at the corpse and see it as the
victory of all spiritual life over death, the claim to bliss.
And here we see how a faithful community looked at a dead
body six hundred years before Christ, and then six hundred
years after the event of Golgotha.

What can the
Christ-Event tell us about the other pronouncements of
suffering? Is birth suffering, as Buddha expressed it?
Looking at Christ on the cross, the part of humanity that
really understands Him will say, “Through birth we step
into this existence — an existence that was found
worthy of harboring the Christ. We are born into a life in
which we can unite with Christ.” Likewise, sickness is
not suffering if one understands Christ. People will have to
learn to understand through the Christ-Impulse what, from a
spiritual point of view, creates health. Illnesses will be
healed in a spiritual way through the innermost,
Christianized life. By dying to the outer world, we become
assured that the treasure acquired in connection with the
Christ-Impulse is carried into every other life. Through
Christ's victory, death appears to us as a bridge that leads
to the spiritual world, and we learn to understand the
meaning of death for this spiritual world through this
Christ-Impulse.

Also, it is
no longer possible to say that the separation from the object
of one's love creates suffering because the power of Christ
will unite us, as one soul to another, with everything we
want to love. Moreoever, the power of Christ will tie those
together who love each other. The suffering that could arise
through the separation of those loving each other is overcome
through Christ.

Let us learn
to love all people, lest our interpretation of the world be
that to be united with what one does not love means
suffering. Rather, let us learn to love every creature in its
own right, and when our spiritual wells start to flow, our
desires will be purified in such a way that we can partake in
everything our souls are destined to receive, once the
hurdles of the physical world are eliminated. And those
spiritual fountainheads can begin to flow through the Christ-
Impulse. People who will be content to obtain through the
Christ-Spirit what they want will have their desires
purified.

The new
spiritual life has placed itself next to the old spiritual
life through the Christ-Impulse. That is how deep progress in
spiritual life ran before and after the Christ-Impulse had
surfaced. This is keenly felt by someone who turns to one of
the most ardent and joyful admirers and messengers of the
Christ-Impulse — Francis of Assisi; his name,
therefore, may well be bestowed on an association in which
spiritual life is to be cultivated. May this name be a good
augury, and may the work in this branch proceed in the true
spirit of our time, properly understood, because this is
necessary for the programs we have envisioned in our
souls.

Let us
consecrate this branch of our movement in the spirit
expressed by the preceding words and by calling down the
benediction we used yesterday when we broke ground for the
outer temple. Let us conjure up the same spirit one more time
so that it may hold sway and weave in this Francis of Assisi
Branch.

May the
feelings of those who have come to this dedication ceremony
unite with this spirit and also unite in a brotherly way with
those who are at work here in serious, anthroposophical
endeavors so that spiritual life may germinate in the midst
of the trees, forests, and sprouting plants of this sunny
piece of nature. It matters little whether the bright sunrays
outside indicate what is beautiful or magnificent in nature,
whether snow be piled up outside, or whether a thick cloud
cover be out there to obscure the external, physical
sunlight. In times when nature renews itself or when she
wears her somber garb, may the spirit of a higher life always
imbue those who will be engaged in spiritual activities, and
let us now conjure up this spirit to aid all the human beings
in this branch.

With this,
let us dedicate, from the bottom of our hearts, the Francis
of Assisi Branch and hope that it will continue its work in
the spirit in which it began — through the spiritual
force of the Masters of Truth and of the Harmony of Feelings
that streams into every branch. May it also continue its work
through the good spirit with which it has endowed itself by
naming itself after the splendid bearer of Christ.

May this
branch continue as it began. Good spirits will guide its
course as it becomes one of the centers where the kind of
life is cultivated of which our time is clearly in need and
where the seeds for the requirements of a far-distant future
are sown. Let us hope the people who will soon have to work
in solitude here emerge strengthened from today's
festivities, where so many sincere friends united their
feelings with them! Then the spiritual life cultivated in
this place will flow back to all people involved and coalesce
with the great harmony of anthroposophical life. Thoughts
that originate in this place will encounter our thoughts,
just as our thoughts will flow here from distant places. This
harmony is something like an external garment of
spirituality, and spirituality must pass through human
evolution like a spiritual breath of air if beneficial forces
are to reign over humanity.

May this
branch be dedicated in the fullest sense of the word; may it
become a field of activity into which we can always place our
hopes with the same love and inner satisfaction as is the
case in today's dedication ceremony.